


Good As I Been to You

by ninhursag



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Break Up, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Het and Slash, Infidelity, Jealousy, Love Triangle, M/M, Multi, Pining, Polyamory, Possessive Behavior, Threesome - F/M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-07
Updated: 2011-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-22 08:24:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Mark's his own worst self, Eduardo isn't faithful and in the end, isn't sorry about it, and Dustin, Dustin just might be in love. Complications, crossed wires and mixed signals galore. Originally posted to the TSN kinkmeme.</p><p>Contains: Bad, emotionally destructive relationships, cheating and accusations of cheating. Allusions to child abuse. Break ups. Threesomes of the m/m/f variety. Voyeurism. Controlled d/s and masochism. Straight boys who figure out they are not so straight.</p><p>Warning: This one is not Mark/Eduardo otp compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good As I Been to You

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Что имеем - не храним](https://archiveofourown.org/works/650433) by [elinorwise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elinorwise/pseuds/elinorwise)



The last time Eduardo remembers being happy, absolutely, perfectly and clearly, he was in college and looking at Mark looking at a computer screen displaying a website in cool blue and white. “It looks good,” he remembers saying, “It looks really good.” And Mark had looked at him, almost casual, a little sly. Proud.

He can never be sure what really made him happy, the moment, or Mark, or some giddy combination of both. He thinks that's why, after the dust settles, the depositions over with, the ink signed on disclosure agreements and the he finds himself sitting on the doorstep of Mark's rented house, chin on his knees.

Mark comes home at two in the morning and stops when he sees him there. “Hey, Wardo,” he says, without inflection. “I would ask what you're doing here, but I'm sure you're about to volunteer.”

Eduardo shrugs and pushes up to his feet. “Can I come in?” he asks, instead of answering.

Mark shrugs minutely and unlocks his door. He leaves it open a sliver and Eduardo follows him inside. When he kisses him in the foyer, Mark's hands tighten on his back and there's a soft, careful inhale.

They don't talk about it, Eduardo just doesn't leave. Mark doesn't apologize for anything, it's forgotten.

Except of course it's not.

***

Mark works about eighty hours a week, and that will never change. Eduardo manages on seventy, and fits in some sleep and the occasional social outing just to see what it's like. They fuck a lot anyway, pretty much whenever they're in the bedroom at the same time. Mark clutches at him with rough, furious fingers, nails digging into his shoulders and pants into his ear.

It always hurts until it doesn't, but Eduardo always comes, so he tells himself it's supposed to be like this. The last time he was happy was still in college.

***

He's friends again, with Dustin. It's been a few years since they last spoke, since that stomach twisting day in Facebook's old offices when Eduardo went to his unwitting execution.

Dustin's the one who makes the move, who comes over with a six pack of microbrews and a nervous smile. “So,” he says, “Before you say anything, I know I should have grown some balls and tried to talk to you years ago, but I didn't think you'd, um, well, I thought you might try to Vulcan neck pinch me or at least slam the door in my face.”

Eduardo finds himself grinning inspite of everything and ushers Dustin through the door. “Yeah, the beer makes up for a lot, and anyway, I never mastered the art. Come in, man.”

He doesn't expect the fast, bone crunching hug he gets when the door closes behind him, it rocks him back on his heels and he's too shocked to even return it. Dustin's voice is low and serious in his ear. “Dude, it sucked without you. But, I figured, if you forgave Mark, I had a shot too. So, I'm sorry. I didn't know, but I should have and I am so fucking sorry.”

“It's nothing,” Eduardo whispers back when he finds his voice again. “It's forgotten.”

Dustin draws back and looks at him for a little too long, hazel eyes a little too clear and serious. “It's actually not. Nothing, I mean. But, thank you.”

Eduardo can only shrug and shift uncomfortably on his feet. “Um,” he says, and stares in the direction of the kitchen. “Want to... let's put these in the fridge and...”

“And, I have Dawn of the Dead on blueray with all the extras,” Dustin finishes for him, grinning again. It only looks a little forced. “Zombies and beer?”

Eduardo grins back, but he doesn't feel forced at all, just relived, like something in his gut has loosened for the first time in a long time. He gives a playful salute. “To zombies and beer.”

They watch the movie, kill the beer between them, and end up sprawled all over the couch giggling like teenagers again, Dustin illustrating a diatribe about why fast zombies suck slow zombies' balls with broad gestures, and it's stupidly okay.

Mark comes in a little after two in the morning and they're still splayed out, still talking slow and lazy and Eduardo's mouth almost hurts from smiling so much, it feels like forever. But, Mark, he takes one look and he says, “Wow, this looks cozy. Should I foresee more marijuana induced make-out sessions in your futures? Or is Dustin done with his college queer experimentation?” His mouth is twisted into something slow and cynical and Eduardo can feel the smile vanish along with the warmth he'd been feeling.

Dustin splutters indignantly, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” And okay, Eduardo knows what that means, but it was years ago, smoke and laughter, gentle, lazy fingers and kisses. He and Mark weren't even dating then. He didn't even know Mark noticed.

“It means, you can go home now,” Mark says, cool and steady. “And, you might want to try spending more time at the office and less time--”

“Really, you want to stop now,” Dustin interrupts, already on his feet. “I get what you're laying down and since I know you're not going to apologize for it, you are not going to say it either.”

“I see nothing I need to apologize for,” Mark says, stiff as anything and walks right out of the room and down the hall. Eduardo is still on the couch, staring after him, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

“I'm sorry for--” he starts to say, but Dustin is shaking his head.

“Wardo, don't, okay. You're not in the wrong.” There's a pause, while they look at each other. Dustin sucks in a breath, like he's trying to be brave. “Guy's a genius and he has some well hidden redeeming qualities or we wouldn't put up with him, but... don't... don't let him do this to you. You don't deserve it.”

Eduardo can only shrug and stare at the wall behind him. He doesn't know what he deserves.

***

That's only the first time.

The next is when Eduardo dances with a girl at a charity benefit. She's young and blonde and smiling, dressed in a column of black silk. She tells him about her acceptance letter to Stanford Law. They both are re-reading Taleb's _Black Swan_ for the sixth time. Her girlfriend is doing a semester abroad in Europe and they talk about the post cards she sent back from Lisbon.

It's fun. It's fun until Eduardo leaves her and wanders over to the bar to get a drink. Mark corners him with two flutes of champagne in his hand and stares at him, low and intense.

“So, you think all the money you sued me for is really turning her on or what?” Mark hisses into his ear. Eduardo feels the flush spread across his skin, hot and miserable. He puts the champagne down abruptly and walks out of the room without looking back, keeps walking until he finds himself stepping into the nearest cab.

Mark comes home late and smelling like scotch. Scotch is Eduardo's father's idea of a man's drink. Mark knows that.

Eduardo bites his tongue and says nothing when Mark kisses him on the back of the neck, wet and sloppy.

***

Eduardo never stopped being friends with Chris, not since they ran into each other outside the library at Harvard and it was just... okay. Chris was around when he was trying to reconstruct himself, careful and slow, just Eduardo who was alright with himself, not his father's son, not Facebook's CFO, not Mark's... not Mark's anything.

Chris mostly lives out in DC these days, but he calls a lot, and he says, “Be careful,” he says. “I'd love to tell you he's matured into a guy who can handle a relationship, but I can't.”

Eduardo laughs into the phone. “I don't know if I've matured into a guy who can handle a relationship, but thanks, mom.”

“You deserve something good,” Chris says, quietly.

“Are you taking pep talk lessons from Dustin?” Eduardo snaps back reflexively. “How do you know what I have isn't good?”

There's a long, drawn out sigh. “Dustin comes on like a goof ball, but he's a smart guy and you know it. You could do worse than listen to him.”

“He has the wrong idea about me,” Eduardo hears himself say.

“I really doubt that,” Chris says. Eduardo shrugs and pretends to listen. It's easier, on the phone.

***

 

There's a guy, a barrista at the local coffee place, who always has a smile for Eduardo, even at the ass end of the morning. “What's your name again? I'm going to remember it someday, I swear,” he says, and Eduardo laughs.

“Eduardo,” he says. The guy forgets it again, the next morning, but he remembers exactly the way Eduardo loves his coffee and it's always perfect and hot.

He doesn't even know how Mark finds out about the guy, just that one day, Mark's smiling at him, vicious and pleased with himself. “I hope that coffee guy you're been eyefucking enjoys the unemployment line,” Mark tells him.

Eduardo swallows. “You can't be serious,” he says, and it's genuinely a hope. That this is a joke, a dumb, insane Mark-style unfunny joke.

It's actually not.

***

Her name is Molly, and she is not beautiful. She has a sharp, inquisitive face, a little too thin, with curly hair and unfashionably round glasses. She's Dustin's new neighbor and she comes over once when Eduardo is there, looking to borrow a frying pan or, preferably, a take out menu. She has no idea what Facebook actually is, she thinks it might be a file sharing site that all her students are obsessed with.

She laughs when she talks about, “Go away for a five year dig in the Andes and come back to see the world's all obsessed with Teeter and Bookface and weird televised singing competitions. Ugh, computers.”

Dustin laughs back and doesn't tell her anything and neither does Eduardo. She comes over a lot... and so does Eduardo. They watch movies, going through most of Dustin's Italian gore collection. Molly dissects them from an anthropological point of view and they all laugh.

On a Saturday afternoon, Eduardo's more than a little tipsy and sitting sprawled out in one of Dustin's kitchen chairs watching Molly back Dustin into his own counter and kiss him hard on the mouth. He doesn't do anything, just watches them make out, lazy and sure. Watches Dustin lift Molly up around the waist and sit her down on the counter, the sticky heat of them together, all awkward angles and messy kisses and freedom.

They know he's there, his stare doesn't seem to bother them. Eduardo's hard and shivering and drunk. He should feel bad, but he doesn't. He thinks, _I know what he kisses like_ , but maybe the way Dustin's mouth tastes has changed, it has been years, and that just gets him harder. Thinking about the eager sweetness of those kisses, and he might be a straight boy, but Eduardo had him too, once upon a time.

He should go... go home. He doesn't, he spends the night on Dustin's couch.

On Sunday he's still there. They're nursing hangovers, playing Halo and eating sourdough pretzels. Sitting just a little too close, so that when his legs sprawls out, his ankle brushes over Dustin's thigh and Dustin bites his lower lip. Like, maybe, the game is getting him tense, but since he's winning easily it's probably not that.

Around lunchtime, Molly brings over a batch of homegrown weed, sweet and strong, and they all smoke up. Molly and Dustin start on the floor, but at some point she stands up. She looks so steady on her feet, narrow and certain.

She straddles Eduardo's legs on the couch and she smiles at him, sweet and gentle, cupping his face with her hands like she's been waiting to do this for days. From somewhere, he can sort of tell that Dustin is the one watching now, just a few feet away, sprawled and open on the ground. Clear hazel eyes, warm and steady.

Molly kisses him and Eduardo closes his eyes and tips back his head. It feels so good and she laughs, like champagne bubbles in his ear. She kisses his throat, easy and light, down the pulse point. Harder when she slides lower, mouth sucking a bruise on his collar bone.

“You are so lovely,” she says, when she unzips his jeans. He grins and spreads his legs, letting her pull out his cock. From somewhere, he hears Dustin's murmured laughter. The sound of skin on skin. Slow and sweaty.

It doesn't hurt. Not even a little bit.

After, when Molly's gone and he's closer to sober, he gets ice water from the fridge, a glass for both of them, and sits down on the couch. Dustin clambers up to sit next to him.

“I feel like I should feel like a shitty person,” Eduardo says.

“Oh, fuck it,” Dustin mutters and grabs the second glass from him, downing it in two gulps. “Let's watch Return of the Jedi, I wanna see asskicking teddy bears while I'm still stoned enough to enjoy it.”

So they do.

***

On Monday, Eduardo's got his bags already packed when Mark gets home from work. It feels good to do it. Light. The rental is all in Mark's name and so are the utilities, so leaving is going to be easy, nothing to clean up behind him. Nothing but the wreckage of this.

He tells Mark as soon as he walks through the door. “I fucked someone else,” he says, casual as breathing. “Just like you've been waiting for me to do.”

Mark's face turns a nasty, blotchy red. “I always knew you were a whore,” he says, wheezing out the words, like he can't breathe.

“Yeah, guess you were right, so the world continues on as usual,” Eduardo says, still easily. His hands are loose at his sides and nothing hurts. “Sorry about that. I've got my things packed so, I'll just be on my way.”

“Wait,” Mark says and the look on his face changes in an instant from sheer rage to... something else. This is the moment it goes off the rails of expectation. “What?”

“I cheated on you,” Eduardo repeats. “I know you heard me just now, what with you calling me a whore, so don't play games.”

Mark shakes his head. “You're leaving? I didn't say you had to leave.”

“I think it's been implicit,” Eduardo says.

Mark's face is white and set. His mouth is carved into a tight line, but his hands are out and open, defensive. It... makes no kind of sense. None. “I actually never said that, implicitly or otherwise, so... Fuck. All right, look, Wardo, you don't need to go. I apologize. Is that what you want? Of course I apologize.”

Eduardo can only stare at him. “You... you apologize? Now? You're actually apologizing?”

Mark stares back, but not at Eduardo, just at some point over his shoulder. “Yes. Is that satisfactory? I apologize. Now, put down the bags and come upstairs with me.”

“Let me understand this, because I don't get it. I gave you what I had. All of it. I did that, and you screwed me and screwed me over a thousand different ways and twisted the fucking knife. You acted like a jealous asshole and made my life a misery. You... you never apologized. Never.” He can't breathe. He can't. He makes himself. “And now, I cheat on _you_ , and for this, you apologize?”

“I said I did,” Mark spits, sounding irritated. “Why are we still talking about this? What else do you want?”

Eduardo swallows. Looks back at his bag. At Mark. Closes his eyes. The last time, the last time he was clearly and purely happy was... was... he stops. “Your apology isn't accepted.”

“What?” Mark's tone is pure incredulity, but Eduardo can't enjoy it. He's not happy Mark's sad, he's not anything, not really, not about this. He's looking at Mark and his set shoulders and curly hair and ice blue eyes and he's just... he's tired. Worn to the bone.

“Goodbye,” he says, and tries to put all of that into his voice.

“You can't leave,” Mark calls after him. “You can't leave. I will... I will make you sorry, I will track you down and... you will wish you never met me.”

Eduardo tries not to hear him. He doesn't wish that, not yet, and he doesn't want to, but he's sure Mark can make him if he puts his mind to it. Mark is amazingly talented. His car's in the driveway. He goes quickly.

***

“I should warn you,” he says, when Dustin opens his door about twenty minutes later. He looks pale and sleepy, dressed in sweatpants and a loose t-shirt, rubbing his eyes and yawning like a little boy. “That Mark is probably going to go after me in a way that made what he did to Erica look like an April Fool's prank and anyone sheltering me is going to get the same.”

Dustin blinks blearily at him. Frowns. Grabs him by the shoulder and tugs him bodily into the house, closing the door behind him. “Fuck him and his evil overlord bullshit,” he says and then ruins it with a yawn.

“Thanks, I'd rather not,” Eduardo mutters. Dustin grins at him and he thinks that maybe he's not happy, absolutely and clearly, but he has been and he will be again.

***

Over the next few days, he gets text messages from Mark, like a carpet bombing run of them, tone all over the map. They range from:

 _Was my dick not big enough or was my ass not tight enough? Which was it, you fucking whore?_ Fully punctuated and with capital letters, to:

_u wer nvr nthng spcial, i dersevr bttr, fcuk u_

_you play erudite so prettily, i wonder what your business friends would think if i forwarded them a video of you sucking my dick? call me or i could_

_give me a list of the people you fcuked behind my back. was it all my friends? just dustin? tell me_

He actually has his hand on the speeddial after he gets, _i'm sorry, okay? i need you, let's work it out?_ but before he can actually hit the button, he gets a call from one of the top backers in the project he's trying to get financed, telling him that he's withdrawing from the project and very broadly hinting that a call from Mark is probably the reason why.

That's when he blocks Mark's number from his phone.

Even though he said it out loud, Eduardo didn't expect Mark to really go after Dustin. He was just a friend with a couch and a sympathetic ear, and no matter where he was in delusion land, Mark _knew_ that. Eduardo knew that he knew that. It didn't stop Dustin from coming back from the office early, pale and visibly strained around the eyes and mouth.

“I think Mark actually does think you cheated on him with _me_ ,” Dustin says and flops down on the couch, palms over his face. “He may have hired ninja assassins to kill me and deface my corpse. If I die, please swear you will wear all black and wipe away tears with a handkerchief at my funeral. I've always wanted a beautiful, um, person, to do that for me.”

“He doesn't think that,” Eduardo says, more hope than belief coloring his voice. “Are these actual ninja assassins or just really large people with pvc pipes and bad costuming?”

“Help, help, I'm being attacked by angry boffers. They followed me all the way from college even though I dropped out, it's not fair!” Dustin mumbles, still into his hands. Eduardo sighs and settles down on the couch arm next to him.

“Hey,” Eduardo says, softly, letting his hand fall down to rest on Dustin's shoulder. “I'll tell him who I cheated on him with. Molly doesn't have a facebook account and she's going to be in the New Guinea Highlands for the next few years. If anyone is going to be safe from the wrath of Zuckerberg, it's her.”

“Yeah, I don't think that will help, but thanks for throwing poor Molly to the wolves for me,” Dustin says. He does peer out at Eduardo through the spaces between his fingers.

“Why wouldn't it help? If he really believes--”

Dustin sighs noisily. “No, you don't get it. It's not just that Mark thinks we fucked, which, you know I might have some chance of convincing him didn't happen. It's that he thinks you _left_ him for me. Which...”

“Which, I sort of did.” Eduardo smiles ruefully. He still has one hand splayed on Dustin's forearm. “But, you know my luck, I would leave him for a straight boy.”

Dustin goes still under his hand, stiff in a way that Eduardo doesn't quite understand. “I feel like that characterization of me is unforgivably limited and narrowing. I don't remember ever checking a box calling myself 'the straight boy, forevermore'. You should... you should know that...”

Eduardo blinks. “Okay,” he finally says. He isn't sure what else to say. He wants to say... experiments in college probably don't count. But...

Dustin rolls his eyes and sits up, shaking Eduardo's hands off. “Yeah, um. Hey, whatever, every guy in the Valley probably has a Johnny Depp clause in their straight dude contract.”

Eduardo laughs, and it only sounds a little forced. “Yeah, when he comes over, I will tell him you are available and waiting to be wooed.”

Dustin gives him a long, hard stare. “Yeah, you do that.” Then, just as abruptly, he looks away. “I'm sorry,” he adds, softly. “I didn't mean to--”

“No. I mean, don't apologize. Please.” Eduardo sucks in a noisy breath. “Just... hold that thought, for a while? Please?”

“Yeah. Okay, Wardo” Dustin whispers.

***

A group of Dustin's friends come over on Friday and they all sit around and play boardgames with obscure directions ineptly translated from the original German. Only one of the guys side-eyes Eduardo obviously enough for him not to be able to pretend not to notice.

He catches Eduardo by the open pizza box and says, “You seem like a nice guy. Do you know what Zuckerberg wrote about you on his blog?”

Eduardo forces a smile. “I'm trying not to, but thanks for telling me about it.”

The guy smirks at him and slaps him on the shoulder. “Well, he deleted it, but not before Valleywag picked it up. What a dude, that guy.” Then he laughs and wanders off, leaving Eduardo staring at the last two slices of pineapple and avocado pizza.

Eduardo isn't going to do this, he decides. He is not going to replay college, starring himself as Erica Albright. His own college disaster was horrible enough, probably worse, but at least it had high drama. This is just mundane and pathetic, like a soap opera.

He eats some pizza and mixes himself a screw driver from the contents of Dustin's fridge and goes back out to play Tigris and Euphrates with Dustin and a blonde girl with a round, pleasant face named Vicky, someone's old college buddy who's down from Vancouver for the week.

Vicky's a tech person, she probably knows exactly who they are and has read fucking Valleywag, but she doesn't mention it, at least. She talks about some Canadian politician who pissed her off for a while and then lets herself be drawn into a side discussion about health insurance and a further side-discussion about why the lack of health insurance is what's going to allow the zombie apocalypse to destroy the world (okay, Dustin drives it that way). She also wins the game and does a victory crow that makes Eduardo grin into his palm.

Vicky stays even after the rest of the group packs up for the night and waves out the door. It's not immediately obvious that there's going to be sex, Eduardo doesn't like to assume, but then Dustin gives him this slanted _look_ , clear eyed, lips tipped up and says, “So, let me get us some beers, okay?”

Before he gets back from the kitchen, Vicky has her hand wrapped around the back of Eduardo's neck and he's kissing her with a steady precision, like he's trying to get the exact measure of her mouth. She tastes like pizza and carrot sticks and she smells nice, clean, like expensive shampoo. They keep kissing until there's the clack of beer bottles on the coffee table. Dustin is grinning at them, rueful and bright.

“I step out of the room for five seconds,” he says, shaking his head. “Do you want me to give you kids some space?” There's a moment of hesitation that could stretch out if it were left alone, if they let it breathe or grow.

Eduardo doesn't even need to think about that. “No, no space,” he says and follows it up by grabbing Dustin's wrist, pulling him down with a hard tug. Dustin's eyes sharpen and brighten.

Vicky laughs, and it's sweet. She's right up close, breath warm in Eduardo's ear. “Sorry for starting without our host,” she says. She leans over so that she's pressed up close, breasts pushed up against Eduardo's shoulder but angled enough to give Dustin a kiss. It's sloppier than the one she gave Eduardo, but no less enthusiastic.

Dustin smirks at the end of it. “All is forgiven, trust me,” he says. Eduardo thinks that he does, that he might.

He doesn't take his hand off of Dustin's wrist, fingers loose and pressed against the pulse point, even while Vicky unbuttons his shirt, kissing and licking her way across his chest. When she undoes his pants and slides down between his legs, licking her lips like she's tasting something amazing. “I wanna suck you,” she says, and he nods.

Her mouth is painted a soft, shimmery pink and it makes this delicious circle when it slides over his cock. He moans and strokes her cheek with his free hand. Her cheek, the soft glide of her hair, the stretched bow of her lip where it's wrapped around him.

Dustin's fingers thread through his at some point, he can feel them, tight and steady, like a grounding point. This is where we are in the universe. He barely remembers to warn Vicky before he comes. He doesn't remember getting up, but he must have, because he's walking, stumbling really, and laughing, one arm around Vicky, Dustin's hand on his lower back.

They all collapse into Dustin's bed a little while later. Dustin crawls over Eduardo and climbs between Vicky's knees. “Hi,” he says, grinning like an idiot. “I would really like to get you off, what do you say?”

Vicky laughs again, so hard she turns pink all over. “I say, yes, please,” she says. Eduardo presses his cheek to one of Dustin's pillow, smiling so wide, he can hardly take it. Dustin's a little sloppy, but extremely enthusiastic and Eduardo can't help wondering if he ever sucked a guy before... what it would be like if he were... but he puts that thought aside for now.

They are pretty together, Dustin and Vicky, giddy and bright, like neither of them has ever been successfully convinced that sex is something to be taken seriously. Eduardo can't even remember seeing someone do it like this... not sober. It is... he can't not watch, all he wants to do is watch.

When they look like they're done, still warm and grinning, all tangled limbs, Eduardo thinks he should get up, make his way out to the couch, something, but he's tired and trying to keep his eyes open is an ordeal. Maybe... maybe he can just close them for a second.

He might have dreamed the part where Dustin's lips brush over his forehead in gentle, proprietary way, like Eduardo has always imagined people do after they've been dating a long time, and they're happy. “Sleep well, sweetheart,” he whispers.

Eduardo doesn't open his eyes, but he smiles. Dustin settles in on one side of him and Vicky on the other, and he falls asleep.

In the morning, Eduardo wakes up in Dustin's bed and watches Vicky put on her underwear with his chin propped up on his elbow. It's not as exciting as watching her take it off was, but she grins at him and blows him a kiss.

“I can make you breakfast?” he offers in a whisper-- Dustin's still asleep, one hand resting lazily on Eduardo's hip, but somehow that seems like too much trouble to move.

Vicky grins and shakes her head, “I'm meeting a friend,” she mouths back. “But it was fun! You guys can call me anytime if you're ever in Vancouver. He's got my number.” She points at Dustin who shifts in his sleep, but not enough to move his hand... maybe to shift in closer.

Eduardo knows the decent thing is to walk her out, at least to the door, but she doesn't look like she's dying for him to and maybe he wants to stay. So he does. He shuts his eyes and lays back, listening to the slow steadiness of someone else breathing.

He doesn't remember falling asleep, but it's later when he wakes up, to the familiar sounds of a keyboard clacking. The wince is automatic, the way he shifts over, burying his face in his pillow before he remembers where he is. But-- before he's even fully oriented, there's the soft pressure of someone's foot nudging gently against his thigh.

“Hey, Wardo. You awake?” and that's Dustin's voice, steady and cheerful. “If yes, will you come and look at something for me?”

Eduardo's eyes open a sliver. Dustin is looking down at him, waiting for an answer, and not at the laptop propped up on his knees. “Yeah,” he says, sleep hoarse. “What is it?” He's already sitting up to look before Dustin even has a chance to answer. It looks like marketing numbers. An outline of a business plan.

“This is something a guy I used to know from AEPi-- remember Marty? He and some of his friends have this project and they're looking for some capital. Their code is solid, I mean, I like it, but the business side is kind of opaque from where I'm sitting. Can you--”

Eduardo nods and nudges Dustin over so he can get at the laptop without really thinking about it. He almost aborts the gesture, because the few times he'd tried to do something with Mark's laptop were not... not a good thing, laptops weren't for touching. But Dustin shifts up wordlessly, just passing it to him like it's completely okay.

“Weren't you an econ major for at least a month?” Eduardo murmurs as he takes it, but he's grinning and Dustin just rolls his eyes at him.

“More like five minutes, but sure. They didn't exactly cover Internet start-ups, a how to guide, in Macro and when we-- my end of the Facebook thing was really on the technical side. Mark and you did the--” he stops, shakes his head. “You know.” He sighs.

Eduardo shrugs. “Yeah, I know.” He looks away. Right now, sitting here in this bed, he thinks someday he might be ready to talk about it, like it was just another thing that happened, a learning experience. That is... that is the first time he ever really thought that, ever believed there might be a day it wouldn't hurt like this. It almost doesn't matter if that day isn't today.

He looks down at the spreadsheet on the screen and frowns, mind already gone, sliding through the numbers. It's a while before he looks up and smiles, but Dustin is looking at him when he does, something fond and gentle and interested, like watching Eduardo work is something he likes doing. “Right, okay. Here's what I think.”

***

The thing that shouldn't be misunderstood, is that there was a time that Mark made him happy, steady and easy, for the first time in his life (he'd thought for the last, that it would be forever). It wasn't a masochism thing, he'd been there and done that, but with Mark, at least right at first, that wasn't it. See, there'd be long stretches where Mark tuned out the world, everything, anything that wasn't code and ideas and the universe he was building behind his monitor. But, when he was out in the world he always looked one direction first, and that was Eduardo's way.

He wasn't shy about it, or weird, or hesitant. He smiled, a tight-lipped little half expression and looked Eduardo over like he was something that belonged exactly where it was, and that? That felt really damned good.

What Eduardo hadn't understood, was there was no half way with Mark. There wasn't even an 80/20, or hell, a 95/5. If he... felt for you (and he had, if he hadn't none of it would have happened) you belonged to him, fully, from crown to toe, to use when needed and set aside as he saw fit, or else he made you pay for it. And pay and pay and pay, like that 5% you were trying to keep was a personal affront, a spiteful thing you had done that justified any punishment.

The thing was, that sometimes, Eduardo liked to be punished. Wait-- substitute likes for liked, it's not like that aspect of him has changed. And before long, what he was doing with Mark was about that part too. Mark didn't like that either, that he could make someone feel something other than pain when he was hurting them. It bothered him, Eduardo didn't have any other explanation for it. Everything bothered Mark, including the fact that he was bothered.

But, there was a time when it was good and nothing else and Eduardo tries not to forget that, because he's never completely sure why it went wrong. If it's something inherent in him that made it sour, if that wrong thing he did that made Mark incapable of faith is something he could do again and never realize until it's too late.

***

It never hurts, this thing he's doing with Dustin, and sometimes that bothers him and he's not sure why. In the end, that's why he has to talk about it.

“There are things you don't know about me that you probably should,” Eduardo tells Dustin over lunch and Dustin rolls his eyes at him, like he's being ridiculous.

Dustin takes a loud, put upon sounding breath, which he needs, because then he looks right into Eduardo's eyes and starts talking at him in a relentless stream, until forcibly interrupted. “I know you're a dork whose favorite things are the weather channel, poisonous spiders and really expensive clothes. I know you snore every spring once your allergies kick in. I know you're freaked out by yappy dogs, are weirdly attracted to assholes who would like to set you and/or your possessions on fire and also that you're the sort of math genius that, in a sane world should have used your talents for coding instead of going to the dark side with the money people and also you keep trying to clean and then re-organize my fridge by color, which is **not** okay, by the way--”

“Dustin,” Eduardo forces his way in. His face is suddenly too hot, though he has no idea why. “Stop. That's not what I mean. I mean, like, bad things?”

Dustin snorts, but he tilts his chin forward. “Fine, then tell me what's so bad. But, if you expect me to... to change my mind about... whatever, it's not going to happen.”

There's actually a list of things, but some of them are easier than others. “I'm kind of a masochist,” Eduardo finally says after letting the silence stretch a bit too long.

Dustin makes a face. “Yeah, well, you dated Mark,” he says, like that explains it.

“No, actually. I mean, he didn't... it wasn't like that with him. In any formal, structured way.” Eduardo doesn't say that when Mark hurt him it wasn't to get him off, because he knows Dustin will take that the wrong way.

Dustin's face turns even more sour, like he hears some of what isn't being said. “You can tell me more if you want, but it's probably not going to make me mad at _you_ if that's your goal.”

This time Eduardo knows exactly why he's blushing. “No, look, that's not what I meant. I just... you should know these things.”

Dustin sighs and stares down at his knuckles. “So, what, do you want someone to tie you up and stuff? Because, I could do that. I mean, theoretically, if that's what we're talking about. Whatever. It's not that weird and it's not... not bad, Jesus.”

“Um,” Eduardo says, because, that was not really a reaction he's ever had before.

Dustin leans forward and peers up at him, steady, if bemused looking. “Or, you could show me. That's what we've kind of been doing, isn't it? You showing me what you like.”

Eduardo almost tells him that's the most ridiculous idea in the world, on so many fronts he doesn't even know where to start. Then he stops. Thinks about it. “Yeah,” he says. “I could do that.”

The girl's name is Anna, and she is a friend of Eduardo's, not Dustin's. They met right at the low point of Eduardo's life-- smack dab in the early days of the depositions, but they haven't been close in a while, not really. She has an easy smile and she understands certain things about Eduardo that most people (Mark) have trouble with. This will be the first time they've played together since Eduardo started dating Mark, and that's... longer than he likes to think about too hard.

The thing with Anna is that she's pretty and she smiles and she wears lacy jeans and flipflops with pictures of bunnies on them. She is also the most hardass domme that Eduardo knows, and she does it with a brilliant, cheerful smile on her face.

“Is he going to play with us?” she asks, looking at Dustin. Dustin shrugs and looks to Eduardo, like it's his call.

“He's just going to watch,” Eduardo decides, since that would probably be the least weird.

Anna nods and so does Dustin, both of them obviously fine with that scenario. “What's your safeword?” Anna asks Dustin.

“Why do I need a safeword?” Dustin says, shaking his head. “I'm not... I mean, you and I aren't even going to be touching.”

“You're in the scene, you have a safeword,” Anna says firmly. She's good at that, impossible to argue with. “And watching is enough to put you in it, especially when you...” She looks from him to Eduardo, and shrugs, as if that says it all. “It can be a lot and you need to be able to stop things if it gets to be too much.”

He looks like he's planning to argue the point but then he stops abruptly, “Fine,” he says. “It can't hurt, I guess. Does it have to be some weird phrase, like, I dunno, 'Princess Leia's chainmetal bra'?”

“No. Um.” Anne looks like she's fighting a laugh, and then she just gives into it. When she stops giggling, she sucks in her lower lip and Dustin grins at her. “How about just red light? There's a theme there. Green is go, yellow is slow down and let me think about this and red is stop.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dustin says, and then it's just a matter of planning when.

They meet up on a Saturday morning, sunny and bright, at Dustin's house, and it's... Anna always knows. She has him from the moment she looks up at him, cheerful smile just shading into mean and says, “Strip.”

So he does, right there in the sunny living room, and kneels on the carpet, hands behind his back, wrists pressed together. He can feel eyes on him, Anna's, a little cold, assessing. Dustin's, too warm, uncertain, fixed on the line of his spine. Or maybe the uncertainty belongs to Eduardo, it's hard to tell.

Anna touches him, fingertips on his chin and he lets himself look at her. Her eyes are gray and soft and her hair's a mess of curls. She's beautiful. He tell her that and she laughs. “No, that's you,” she says.

She kisses him once, dry and light, on the mouth. Then she puts him over the arm of the couch to get the angle right, make it easiest on her arm. She makes him ask for it. Leans over him, one arm pressed close to his face, blocking his view, “You have to tell me what you want,” she says.

“Hurt me,” he whispers.

“Why should I?” she asks, steady as a ritual, but it's not, not this time. They're not alone and Eduardo can't forget that, he imagines eyes on him, on the curve of his shoulders, the bend of his neck and his exposed ass, turned up. He shivers, wonders what those eyes are thinking... if it's too much. He doesn't look up.

“Because I deserve it,” he says, softly, almost inaudibly.

“Ask for it, then,” she murmurs. There's the cool touch of something on his skin. Leather, he thinks. Cold now, but it will be warm soon.

“Do it. Please.”

The first hit is paralyzing in intensity. He knows what it is by feel and memory-- a switch, black handled and vicious and it stings like fire on his skin. Comes down again and again, burns the meat of his ass red and leaves him gasping and twitching, a mess of whimpers and tears and hard enough to leave a line of sticky precome on the couch.

Dustin's couch, shit.

She doesn't stop, he doesn't want her to stop, never ever. Doesn't quite know why she does when she finally does, because he's hard, he hurts, and it's still not enough, it's not. His back and ass feel like fire, burning and alive, every nerve ending screaming at him. His mind is not... not quite empty. It's not enough.

“It's alright,” she murmurs to him, her voice gentle, her hand anything but. When she lays the switch down she tangles it up in his hair, holding his head still and tugs him back like it's a handle. “But you made a mess of Dustin's nice couch and his maid shouldn't have to clean that up, should she?”

“No,” he whispers. He lets her drag him back, just enough to change the angle, to force him down so he's on his knees. He looks up, catches wide hazel eyes and a tense line of mouth and understands exactly why Anna said Dustin needed a safeword, wonders if it's too much, when it gets to be too much, when Dustin stops watching and just stops (is that what happened with Mark, in the end?)-- then there's a tug on his hair, hard, a white line of pain that empties his head.

“Clean it up, then,” Anna whispers to him. There's too much pressure on his back, his shoulder, not just her hand. Her foot, pressing him down, and she's not that big, but it's her voice that's insistent. He moves into it, slow and yielding, forgetting to worry about the eyes on him. Lets her move his head, force him down, to clean up his own precome, slick on his tongue. He's hard, he's still hard, but she doesn't touch his cock, just lets it hang so heavy between his legs while he shakes.

Sometimes, after, she lets him come, but this time she puts her hands on his cheeks and forces his head up, slowly, centimeter by centimeter, until they are looking each other right in the eye. “What do you want?” she asks, and the question is so sharply unexpected he can only stare. “Eduardo,” she repeats and this time she slaps his face, hard enough to make him gasp, to feel the imprint of fingers and palm, different from the places in him that are already burning. “If you don't say it, you can't have it. Who do you want?”

He opens his mouth, but he... he can't... it's too... his gaze cuts away, and suddenly he's looking right at Dustin, eye to eye, no hesitation. Dustin's stare is still frank and steady and he has his lower lip sucked in, worried between his teeth. He doesn't look angry. Though. Or even scared, not anymore. He tilts his head, like he's saying something, something wordless and inviting.

“Dustin,” Eduardo whispers.

“Okay then,” and that's Anna, and she's smiling faintly when she releases her grip on Eduardo's hair. And normally, she'd hold him afterward, normally, she'd stroke his hair and sometimes put her hand on his cock and bring him off, long and slow, but this time she just gives him a steady little push and he shivers all over and crawls the short distance over to where Dustin's sitting. His body aches, hot and strange and languid, too electric for shame. Dustin's eyes are wide and he doesn't push him away, just slides down off the couch so that they're kneeling face to face and wraps his arms around the unbruised parts of Eduardo's shoulders, tight and fast.

“Hey,” he whispers. “Hey.”

He's got warm, broad palms and they're steady on Eduardo's skin, down the length of his spine and over the curve of his ass. Gentle, but even a gentle touch on the raised welts makes him shiver and twitch, the aftershocks of something that could have been pain, but isn't. Quite.

That's it, that's all, they don't fuck, it's just hands, touching him in a way that should be gentle but makes oversensitive skin ache and scream and want.

Afterward, Eduardo finds himself with his face buried in Dustin's lap, just breathing in and out between sobs while careful but steady hands stroke his hair, gently and unevenly. He has no idea why he's crying, but Dustin doesn't seem to have a problem with it, he just murmurs, “It's okay, it's okay, it's okay, sweetheart. I've got you.”

Later, Dustin looks him in the eye, soft and serious and says, “I can't ever do that to you, what she did. I'm sorry. I can't even-- I just can't.”

Eduardo shrugs and shakes his head, “I don't actually expect you to,” he says, and he can't explain that he likes getting hurt sometimes but that one of the things he likes best about Dustin is the way that there is never any hurt involved. Maybe someday soon, he'll have the words for what it is, but not yet. “I just... wanted you to know this. About me. So, it's not a shock later, I guess.”

Dustin nods, like he's thinking about it. “She's pretty hot, though” he says, and grins after a long pause. “Anna. I'd let her spank me if she wanted to.” He waggles his eyebrows and Eduardo finds himself giggling, like it's not a big deal. Like none of it ever was.

Maybe if there's something wrong with him, it's not as wrong as all of that.

***

There's a text from Mark on Dustin's phone, which, given how things have played out is... not unexpected. Eduardo knows he shouldn't read it, but he does anyway.

_do you have anything that isn't my leftovers?_

It makes Eduardo's hands shake. He can't break Dustin's phone and there's no point deleting the message-- it's already marked as read. It isn't true, anyway. It isn't true.

That first time they were friends, really friends, was in college, when Mark was just this interesting, weirdly compelling guy Eduardo had met through Chris, and Dustin was just their suitemate, nice and funny, and a little hyper. And Eduardo had come over to see if Mark wanted to hang out, but he was in the CS lab and Dustin was around, laying on his stomach on his narrow twin bed, with a copy of Beowulf open in front of him.

“I hate the Old English,” he called out to Eduardo the second Eduardo walked into the suite. “All these begats, you'd think you were reading the Tanakh, now with added Saxons and Jesus figures. Come here and distract me from it!”

So, they sat around and talked about Beowulf and it all somehow led to Dustin showing him his Guitar Hero set-up and it was good.

The first time they kissed was after a friend of a friend scored some pot and Dustin ended up with a small baggie of it. He could have shared it with Chris or Mark, but he didn't. Eduardo didn't think much of it at the time, he knew in that sure and certain way some things are obvious, that Dustin was straight, that if Dustin were ever mysteriously and astonishingly other than straight, he hadn't indicated... interest, not like that.

The pot seems to change that. Eduardo basically likes... just kissing, is the thing. And Dustin is warm and sweet, friendly and smiling at him, right there, hip pressed against him in the bed. Dustin's fingers are gentle on his, and Eduardo doesn't even remember when they started holding hands, just that they are.

The room is smoky and spinny, and Dustin's eyes are clear, the hazel darkening to something more like brown. Eduardo doesn't even think twice about kissing him. Dustin makes the best sounds into it, a little surprised, a little hungry, wide and easy. His mouth is gentle and steady, not to wet or dry and opens to the pressure of Eduardo's tongue.

When Dustin looks down at him, clear eyed and young (he is eighteen and looks fifteen. Eduardo is nineteen and feels a thousand), Eduardo doesn't think about all the things he will later, that this boy is straight, that this boy is good and innocent, that this is a one time thing that he is going to let himself have and then let go, forget. In the moment, he only knows that Dustin smiles at him and kisses again, steady and sure and grounded and his hands and mouth are warm.

Eduardo thinks, _but how am I worthy of this?_ That part never makes any sense.

There's one other time, though, over winter break. Eduardo's parents were on a Mediterranean cruise, a last minute thing, so it was pretty much him and the maid, knocking around. Most of his old school friends were off with their families doing Christmas things, and even though he could probably have caged an invite to one of those, he really didn't want to be the fifth wheel on another family's festivities even if he did Christmas. Which he didn't, doing it up ironically with 'Hanukah Bushes' was kind of idiotic for families that didn't have kids.

Instead he wanders around the empty house, book tucked under his armpit, trying to find one place or another where he can settle down enough to read. He'd have done that for a while except his phone buzzes in his pocket announcing a text. He thumbs it open.

**D: ocala borig as fcuk. all snow is elcteric now**

About ten seconds later:

**D: wre r u wht r u wering???**

Eduardo shouldn't laugh, but he does. He shouldn't call, but he does. He definitely shouldn't 'borrow' his dad's car unasked and haul it north up the Florida Turnpike. The traffic's lighter than normal-- people are probably already at their destinations, going about their Christmas-ness.

It still takes him about five and a half hours, half he spends listening to Stravinsky and the other half second guessing himself-- sometimes the halves mingle, but hey, it's Dustin. He doesn't do Christmas either, and if Eduardo dropping in is this big disruption for his family he would have said something, right?

He's barely touched the doorbell before he's attacked by hurricane Dustin, a giant grin on his face, and an apparently unstoppable desire to hug Eduardo. Eduardo grins and hugs him right back, clasping both arms around him.

“You came, thank god,” Dustin says fervently. “I hate Christmas, everything is closed, there is nothing on tv but stupid shit, I am so bored, we keep playing scrabble. My whole life is made of scrabble, which I suck at. I was going to try to start on next semester's homework in self-defense and that's just sick, man.”

A pleasant faced, smiling man that Eduardo vaguely recognizes from Parents' Weekend comes over and shakes his hand. “It's good to see you again, Eduardo,” he says, and generally sounds happier to see a kid he's met just once than Eduardo's father is to see him when he's known him all his life. Familiarity definitely breeds contempt.

“You too, Mr. Moskovitz,” Eduardo says politely, which makes Dustin rolls his eyes behind his father's back and also makes Dustin's mother beam at him.

“Do you play scrabble?” she asks. “You can be on Dustin's team, he needs all the help he can get.” She looks ridiculously fond, to Dustin's visible disgust. Eduardo lives in the world, he's aware that most people's families aren't like his, but it's sort of nice to bask in the vicarious pleasantness.

Eduardo's about to answer when Dustin cuts in for him, “Your confidence in me is overwhelming, Mom, but no, thanks, Wardo's got a car, there is greasy, stomach-lining burning buffet style Chinese food in our immediate future. Bye!” and more or less manhandles Eduardo out the door. He wouldn't have minded staying, but Eduardo goes, smiling and shrugging at Dustin's parents, like, _what can you do?_

The Chinese Buffet is aptly named 'Chinese Buffet'. It is actually almost full-- it seems to have attracted Ocala's entire population of non-standard's, from a very beautiful dark eyed woman in a hijab sharing a table with an Eurasian looking girl in shorts, to what looks like a convention of bored looking hippies in the back corner.

They do manage to cage a seat, a little too close to the bathroom, but whatever. Dustin still looks disgustingly pleased to have him there, almost as happy as Eduardo is he came. They eat low mein with vegetables that have been steamed past the point of endurance and then stir-fried in all the leftover grease in the universe and probably way too much dubious looking crab. Dustin kicks him under the table and tells him all about some side project he's doing involving a lot of coding with a sort of tenuous best case result. Eduardo understands it almost as well as when Mark tells him about things similar. The only thing Eduardo can comment about is the underlying math, but they can talk about that, at least.

“I think I might switch my major to Econ next semester,” Dustin tells him, after that winds down.

Eduardo blinks at him. “Why?”

“Why not? Whatever, it will be easier than CS, I've already done most of the math, so I'll have more time to get some real work done.” He grins and stuffs a dumpling into his mouth.

“That is a truly logical set of reasons. Maybe you should switch your major to sports and leisure that would make even more sense,” Eduardo says and laughs, ducking the straw wrapper that Dustin throws at him.

After, they get in Eduardo's car, and Dustin directs him around town. There's barely anyone around, everyone probably tucked safe behind their incredibly gaudy Christmas lights, but Eduardo doesn't spot any tumbleweeds, so that's okay.

They end up in the movie theater parking lot. “Let's see, we can have exploding cars, exploding tanks and exploding zombies, people being eaten by sharks, oh, or sappy bullshit,” Dustin tells him. “Which sounds better?”

“With choices like that it can only be explosions,” Eduardo pronounces. He's still grinning and Dustin is too, but he's also watching him in this odd, curious way that Eduardo doesn't quite know what to do with.

They end up watching a movie with exploding zombies, but not sharks. They sit in the last row, back in the corner.

Dustin buys a ridiculously large tub of popcorn and plops it down in between them, grinning maniacally. “I love this theater, I always get lucky,” he announces, just a little too loudly, probably loud enough that the Orthodox family four rows in front of them can hear every word. “Missy Abrams basically spent the whole movie trying to suck my tonsils out last Christmas.”

Eduardo makes a valiant attempt not to laugh. “That's an awfully limited definition of lucky,” he says and Dustin makes a face at him.

“Yeah, well, we can't all be as hot as you,” Dustin mutters and it's too dark to see if he's blushing, but Eduardo would bet that he is. He actually has to physically suppress the urge to find out for sure by touching Dustin's cheek.

He grins behind his hand. “Is this a broad hint that you would now like to get lucky?” he asks. “Because, I can see if I can find a girl for you.”

“Whatever,” Dustin says. “I'm not even here with a girl, I'm here with you.” There's a pause. Eduardo blinks. “Um, I didn't mean in a weird way,” Dustin adds hastily.

Eduardo is nearly 100% sure that Dustin didn't bring him here with intent, not intent to do anything but hang out and have fun. All other motives are his own, something he brought with him. Eduardo is the one who smirks, flutters his lashes and says, “No, not weird, but very instructive.”

Eduardo is the one who puts his hand on Dustin's cheek and tilts it over so the angle is right for a kiss. Dustin's smile is electric and he's the one who pushes in for it. It's a little awkward for a second, because they are sober, and Dustin is all bright enthusiasm rather than technique. Teeth clacking is the kind of thing you notice in that state, but then someone laughs and they readjust the angle and they're kissing for real. Dustin's skin's a little prickly from stubble but it feels warm and soft underneath that and Eduardo can almost feel the pulse under his palm. His mouth tastes slippery, like the oily butter on the popcorn, and innocent like...

Eduardo doesn't know why he stops kissing, smiles, lets his forehead rest against Dustin's and listens to him breathing a little too fast, a little too wild. Doesn't know why he waits until Dustin settles down and steadies and says, “There. Now you're still lucky. Next time it will be a girl and you might actually make it a few extra bases.” Pats Dustin on the back like they're buddies and settles into his own seat like he doesn't want to keep kissing.

“Um,” Dustin murmurs and rubs his hand over his face, “Yeah, okay. Wow.”

Eduardo smiles and pretends he doesn't spend the rest of the movie periodically licking his lips, tasting popcorn butter and glancing sidelong at the boy next to him. Dustin watches the movie. The thing is, even if it were a-- he is straight, right? And... but innocent, maybe innocent enough to be seduceable anyway, which would be a dick move, right? Because you don't do that, take advantage of someone else's confusion.

In retrospect, Eduardo acknowledges that in many ways nineteen year old him was an idiot missing exactly what was under his nose. Something that never made him scared or miserable or twisted inside, someone who made him happy, stupidly so.

But, see, it was only about 50% obliviousness. The other 50% was Mark and Mark was... there were reasons everyone followed him (Eduardo loved him).

***

The thing was, it was actually Eduardo's fault. He hadn't understood. The first time, the time it had been good, back at Harvard, when they were sitting together on Mark's narrow twin bed and Mark gave him a careful, open smile and said, "But, if we do this, you have to... you have to be mine. You can't-- you have to be mine. Everything." And Mark looked so hungry, so eager, so much like he really did want each and everything that Eduardo was.

And Eduardo felt so hopeful and ready and sure and he said, "Yeah, yes, of course. Of course." He hadn't understood that what he thought was everything wasn't going to be enough. That he wasn't enough. Which... he should have known better.

***

Of course Mark's not done. The next thing is the worst, really worse than anything Eduardo ever thought Mark would do, and there's no way to fight it. It's a charitable donation, in Eduardo's name.

Mark forwards him the press release information via email, with a little smiley attached. Eduardo stares at the text, blank, not even sure how to respond, if he can, if he should. He wants to hide under the bed, in the linen closet, lock himself in the bathroom and huddle in the tub. His stomach twists and his heart's on overtime, like a preview of what it means to be old and sick.

It's just words on a screen, nothing to be afraid of.

_MZ of Facebook donates $15 million to the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation in honor of his friend, ES, who overcame it_

He wants to be sick. It's a lie, of course it's a lie, it wasn't like his childhood was some Lifetime movie special. Mark never understood that. Eduardo was a hard child to bring up, his parents were trying their best and Mark always made it seem like it was something slimy, like it was wrong just because it wasn't a carbon copy of his own super liberal Long Island rich kid upbringing.

He thinks mostly that he wants to go out, find Mark and punch him in the stupid, smug face and see if he finds that to be abuse. His fists clench up thinking about it, about Mark's tight, upturned mouth and how pleased with himself Mark probably looked right at this moment, blue eyes crinkled and imagining Eduardo's reaction to what he'd set in motion. The whole world was going to think Eduardo's childhood was something slimy and horrible, this was a press release, everyone was going to think...

 _His father was going to be so fucking angry_. The thought hits him out of nowhere and his heart actually speeds up. He forgets the rage. He wants to be sick.

***

See it wasn't even that he told Mark. Even toward the beginning, when they were still at school, when everything was still... when it was good. Happy.

There'd been a morning, sunlit and sure, in Eduardo's tiny single. A good morning.

Mark's fingers run up and down the length of his back in the sunlight and he sighs and stretches into it, belly and hips shifting against the sheets. It feels delicious, being stroked like a cat, careful and delicate.

He whimpers, when Mark pauses. Mark's voice is soft, hesitant, but still toneless. “You have... on your back, there are places... it's not smooth, like a lump or a... Did something happen?”

Eduardo blinks and arches his neck to try to see. The skin of his back looks like the skin of his back. Whatever marks there'd been have faded a long time ago, at least to the point you can't really see them. No one he'd ever slept with before has mentioned feeling them by touch. He shrugs, not even sure if that's what Mark means.

“I don't know,” he says and yawns, stretching again to crack his neck and sighing at it. “Weird.” He honestly doesn't know, he tells himself. Anyway, Mark will get distracted by his laptop soon enough, he's not worried about that.

Mark doesn't, of course. Instead, next time he's online he checks medline openly and conspicuously and stares at Eduardo, frowning just slightly. “I think it's fibrous tissue,” he says, and it's long enough later that Eduardo has no idea what he's talking about at first.

“What is?” he asks, looking up from his notes.

“On your back. You have scars. Not consistent with surgical scars but too regular and localized to be-- did you get into an accident? Is that what it is?” Mark's eyes are narrow, curious. He doesn't sound upset or disturbed or anything.

Eduardo considers lying, it's not like anyone would ever know. Then he shrugs, smooth and shallow and... fuck it. If he can't trust Mark? It's not like it's a big deal anyway. “No,” he says. “Nothing but fender benders and a few times falling off my bike.”

Mark actually leans forward, it's a little disturbing that he's focusing so hard on Eduardo and they're not even having sex. “So... what? Someone... someone... beat you with an object?”

Eduardo blinks and stares for a moment. Then he laughs, shaking his head. “No, wow, jesus, that's pretty Lifetime movie of you, medical research boy.”

Mark's frown deepens. “So, what was it then?” his voice isn't toneless anymore, Eduardo notices that right away, it's gone up a note, irritation and something else.

Eduardo smiles, because Mark's so weird sometimes. Out of everything to get irritated at. “I was a tough kid to deal with growing up,” he says. “I needed to learn the rules, so...”

“Wait, you just said he didn't beat you,” Mark demands, sharp and harsh, like he's pouncing on inconsistency.

Eduardo rolls his eyes. He doesn't know how they got from _someone_ to _he_ and he definitely doesn't get, “He didn't. That's not _beating_ , it's not like, child abuse or whatever. Don't be creepy.”

“You have scars,” Mark says, and now every word bites and Eduardo wishes he'd just lied and said it was an accident after all. “On your back.”

Eduardo sucks in a breath. “You know how sometimes you tell me that people think you're being offensive and you don't even know what you did wrong and wish they'd just told you to stop when you did it?” he asks. He can hear the bite in his own words.

“I don't know what that has to do with anything, but yes?” Mark asks, cautiously this time, and it is actually troublesome to hear him take that tone, like he really, honestly believes what's coming out of his mouth, that Eduardo was... that Eduardo's father was...

“I'm telling you now. You're being offensive. Drop the fucking subject.” Eduardo forces the words out, sharp and harsh, and Mark just stares at him.

“Fine,” he says, a few long breaths later. “If that's what you want.”

“That's what I want.”

After that, he's pretty much an unforgivable jackass to Eduardo's father, Eduardo can't even have them in the same room anymore and nothing he says makes it better.

***

Mark is still such a jackass. Eduardo isn't twelve and he isn't twenty or even twenty-five anymore, though. He can deal. He could go out and break things, sue people, ruin property, ruin himself, but he doesn't. Instead he grabs his running shoes and hits the pavement.

Running is an easy way to find oblivion, usually, but today his brain won't shut down and let him find his rhythm so for nearly three miles so it's harder than normal, he can feel the uneven rush of air in his lungs, feel the burn of muscle when he pushes himself. Then, somehow, one foot in front of the other, it clicks into place like it always does and all he feels is the smoothness of his strides, the press of pavement under his soles and the way his legs move, air rushing in and out without thought. Peace.

Running is easy, you can lose yourself in that, as good as drinking, as anything, but without a hangover after. By the time he gets back to his-- to Dustin's place he's a mess, sweaty, shaky, but blissful. Annihilated by movement. Everything is cool, zen and he has no fear when he stumbles upstairs to take a shower.

Everything is cool under the rush of hot water. Then he gets out, thinking about toweling himself dry, going downstairs, doing something productive with his day and it all seems like too much effort. His knees tremble, he wants to sit down. He does, abruptly.

“It's not true,” he tells Dustin, a few hours later when he comes in and finds Eduardo still sitting in the bathroom, naked, knees pulled flush with his chest. “What Mark said, about... It's not true. It wasn't like that.”

Dustin's face is tired, eyes red-rimmed. That's because of him, even finals and late night coding tears never made Dustin look quite this worn out. He hates that so much. All this time he's thought a lot about how Dustin is good for him and not at all about if he's good for Dustin and now that he is thinking he doesn't know the answer to that.

He suspects he won't like that answer if he thinks about it too hard.

“Okay,” Dustin says. He smiles, but not like he means it. “I feel the sudden urge to make the DMV find so many unpaid parking tickets. And add him to most wanted registries. The FBI, CIA, Interpol, whatever. And, like... I don't know. I feel like the threat of prison time for hacking is overrated. If the script kiddies can do it, so can I. Frankly, I have a lot of urges right now.”

“Who, Mark?” Eduardo mutters, but he finds himself half smiling back despite how he feels. “I think he'd probably get you back if you tried and I'm not sure I can sit through another war of funny little pranks. College was bad enough and then there weren't even... feelings.” Yeah, that's one way of putting it.

Dustin shrugs, like he doesn't care. “Mark too,” he says. “Let him try, if he thinks he can take me. I have no fear.”

There's a long moment of silence. Too long, suddenly he's back to imagining the look on his father's face when he finds out that-- he's going to assume Eduardo said-- did-- something. “He's going to be so _mad_ ,” Eduardo whispers, breaking the silence.

Dustin kneels down next to him on the cold floor. He moves slowly, carefully. “Who?” he asks softly. “Mark? He can't do anything to you.”

“What? Why?” Eduardo says, not thinking at all for a second. How can he be in his twenties and still as worried about that as he was in his teens?

Dustin sucks in a breath, a little too loudly. He's close enough that Eduardo can feel the air shift and whistle. “Yeah, _he_ definitely can't do anything to you either.”

Eduardo closes his eyes. He won't-- he can't have that conversation, not now. Hopefully never. He says, instead, “Have you eaten?” He looks down at himself and shrugs. “I could put something on and we could go out if you want. Or stay in, that would be okay.”

Dustin's mouth quirks, and Eduardo can sort of see the response come on, like an automatic muscle motion, “Well, you don't have to put something on, if you don't want to, I won't complain and--” he stops. Frowns and shakes his head, like no, that wasn't what he wanted to say. “You don't have to change the subject. If you're-- if you want to talk to me, I would actually like to listen.”

Eduardo forces his smile to stick. “Thanks, but not right now,” he says. “Raincheck?”

Dustin shrugs and bites his lip. It makes his mouth look softer, warmer. He'd taste good right now, very good. “If, if that's what you want, but--”

Eduardo silences him with a slow careful touch, his fingers on that mouth, stilling the words. The skin there is very warm, a little damp. Dustin's lips part under the touch and that's easy, as easy as when they were kids and Eduardo was the only one who knew much about what came after kissing. Better. “You promised me another raincheck, not too long ago,” Eduardo says. “And I wouldn't mind collecting on it now. If you were okay with that.”

Dustin's breathing is a little too fast, his eyes are dark and his mouth still hangs open, just a little. Turned up around the edges. He is perfect in this way, better than running, better than anything else that Eduardo could set his mind and heart to. He's seen Dustin, with those women, the way he is, smiling and attentive. The way he laughs into it like sex is nothing but joy and it makes him wonder distantly, who taught him that (Eduardo couldn't have, he's so glad he didn't, that he wasn't the first, that would have been wrong).

“I would be... unshockingly okay with that,” Dustin says, a little stilted, panting for air. He cups his own hands around Eduardo's face, like he's trying to make him hold still. “But, um, Wardo--”

Eduardo swallows. Okay, so they are going to have to talk about “I am so fucking tired of feeling like shit and letting other people make me feel shitty and, you know, I'm not enough of an asshole to have missed the fact that now I'm making _you_ feel shitty--”

Dustin shakes his head, “That's not you, man, that's on--”

“It's proximity to me,” Eduardo interrupts. “It's on my... my behalf, or something, I get that. It's still a real thing. See, the thing is, don't-- you don't make me feel bad, or weird or insufficient. At all, ever.” Dustin's mouth opens but he doesn't say anything, he just looks weirdly flushed for a second and bites his lip as if to shut it. Eduardo smiles at him and soldiers on, “So, taking that as a baseline, I would like, if you would be interested in such a thing, to collect on that raincheck now. And I would like to make you feel really good, because that's what you make me feel. Now, specifically, but also in general until you're sick of me. So, is that okay?”

Dustin blinks at him and just stares for a second but, just when Eduardo almost starts to worry he breaks out into a blindingly bright grin. “Yeah, because I got hit by the crazy stick and want to turn an offer like that down. Also, don't count on me being of sick of you. I've known you a long time.”

Eduardo could have said something else, probably would have, but then Dustin is kissing him or he's kissing Dustin, it hardly matters which way and in which order that goes.

He does taste really good, better than running, better than Zen.

***

Eduardo has felt bare before, opened up with all the soft parts exposed. Anna has done that for him, controlled and deliberate, the stroke of the switch on his back, violent caresses. The way she holds him together afterward, gentle in equal measures, and closes the wounds. Tells him he has done well.

Mark has done that, with careless words and a steady, dissecting glare (Eduardo used his words back but he'll never know if they had the same impact, any impact at all. He thinks so, but it's not the same). Those wounds are forgotten, left to heal in the open air. There are still parts of him in shreds.

His father... no. Not going to think about that now.

Dustin opens him up without him ever realizing he's doing it. He is careful with his hands. Eduardo has seen him with those girls, but he was never careful like he is now, like there was a delicacy in what he was doing.

“Have you ever?” Eduardo asks him and Dustin laughs and presses his mouth against the sharp angle of Eduardo's collarbone.

“With a dude? No. It's just you. Been thinking about you.” There's a flush on his cheeks, though, even as he smiles. “I did watch, um, educational how to videos, though. Um. So I wouldn't look too much like a virgin.”

And then Eduardo is the one who grins, who reaches up to draw him in and kisses his mouth. “Whatever, I've seen you, you clearly had the v-card punched.”

“Yeah, with the ladies. I just said, you're the only dude.” Dustin flushes again, but he smiles. His mouth curves all the way into it, pleased. Bruised from kissing.

Eduardo laughs. “Me and Johnny Depp.”

“No. Just you.” There's no hesitation in him when he kisses his way down Eduardo's skin, he doesn't stop like having hair on your chest is weird or foreign. He has already made up his mind to this. He licks over Eduardo's nipple and grins at the feel of it. He has a steady grip on Eduardo's hip, thumb and finger digging in where sweat makes everything slippery.

He only pauses for a second before he puts his hand on Eduardo's dick. “God, these things always look so weird on porntube.” He grins like it's the best joke ever, but his hand is careful, almost too gentle. “Dicks are seriously God's joke on reality. Kind of cool to handle one in real life, though. Can I suck yours?”

Like Eduardo was ever going to say no to that.

Dustin does not give a great or even a good blowjob, exactly, gags in the wrong places, not enough suction and he ruins it by laughing too hard in the middle of it because of god knows what joke he just thought of. But when Eduardo cups one hand around the back of his neck to hold him still and uses the other to direct him while he whispers, “yeah, there, no, okay, yeah, come on” Dustin goes with it, enthusiasm carrying him on.

His eyes are so wide, like sucking Eduardo off is one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to him. It cracks Eduardo open, like an overripe watermelon, all the pink parts exposed to air.

He only remembers to be angry much later when he thinks that it could have been like this before, it could have been like this all along. He's mostly angry at himself for being stupid, but there's spillover to everything else.

 

***

He knows without them ever discussing it as a group that Dustin is the one who argues with Mark about it first. He knows because it's not a secret (everyone is so damned tired of secrets), they have it out over skype, at full volume, while Eduardo is in the next room, drawing equations about the NPV of relationships in the margins of last month's PC World.

Mark sounds somewhere in the distance, just a voice on a speaker from where Eduardo is. A voice that is staggered between bored and mad.

Dustin's in the next room and just plain mad enough to be loud.

“I mean, I get it, okay? I'm like, the wacky side-kick in the romantic comedy, the hero's best friend who is basically there to make the hero look polished and whatever in comparison. I don't walk off with the love interest, I _get_ that.”

“You seem to have no problem walking off with--”

“No. See, here's the thing, you broke the rules. You, not me. You were supposed to make him happy. You were supposed to be the fucking hero, Mark, and make him happy, and instead you decided you'd rather be the villain.”

“He cheated on me. He's the one who did that.”

“He loved you. And... instead of being... grateful and amazed and everything else you are supposed to have been, you are trying to make him pay for that, for loving you. And I am here to tell you, that's goddamned enough. I am not going to let you fuck with him anymore.”

“So, what? That suddenly makes you the hero? You think he's ever going to be in love with you? That's a pretty delusion.”

“I think he's going to be happy and if it's with me, I'll be damned happy too, but if it's not, I will shut up and deal. That's what I think.”

Eduardo puts down the magazine and goes outside. Everything is green, the fine, lush green that only paying the lawn people extravagantly ever gets you.

Dustin comes down later, hands stuffed in his pockets and shuffling his feet. He leans against the open screen door and raises and lowers his shoulders. “Hey,” he says. “You know what would be fun? I want to get a couple of people together and go cliffjumping. This girl, Eileen, she works for google, I think. Accounting, maybe? She says there's a place up north where--”

Eduardo stops him, making a face. “I like my brain intact and inside my skull, thanks.”

Dustin's eyes get wider, more hopeful looking. “Well, you can just come for the hiking and swimming part. You don't actually have to jump off a--”

Eduardo laughs and shakes his head. “If you jump off a cliff right in front of me, I probably do have to. Then they'll write something really embarrassing on my tombstone.”

Dustin takes a step forward. His shoulders are straight now and the sunlight makes his eyes lighter. “What? Like, here lies Wardo, he was awesome? Not afraid to take a chance?”

He shakes his head again. “Here lies Eduardo. He was an idiot for love.” Then he pushes Dustin back against the wall and kisses him hard on the mouth. They don't talk about Mark, they don't have to. Everything is known.

***

Eileen is blonde and stocky and laughs almost as much as Dustin does. She wears cargo pants and intensely sensible looking hiking boots that could probably kick the shit out of Eduardo's in a boot fight. Or so says Dustin.

It's not too hot and they have plenty of water in their packs, along with their sleeping bags and a lifetime's supply of junk food and trailmix.

Dustin and Eduardo don't actually jump off any cliffs, but they watch Eileen do her own diving with big eyes. “If she dies, how are we going to explain it to Valleywag?” Dustin mutters.

“Or the cops?” Eduardo says, still staring ahead. He almost doesn't notice when Dustin threads his fingers through his, but then they're holding hands and its cool.

Eileen doesn't die. She climbs out of the water, wet and shining in the sun, like a goddess in a swimsuit and sneers at them between adrenaline laced laughing fits. Eduardo does not mind when she calls them wimps.

Dustin turns out to have learned how to build a not unrespectable campfire at some point in his life. Eduardo makes himself useful by dragging out the food while he does that and Eileen yawns and curls up on her sleeping bag.

His mouth curves but he doesn't laugh out loud when he finds the tube of k-y lube in the bottom of Dustin's bag. No wonder the little twerp looks so smug while he's out there making fire. He doesn't say anything, though, not yet. Instead they make s'mores semi-successfully, with only some amount getting burned to ash.

By the time it starts to get dark, Eileen is yawning into her hands, eyes blinking open and shut, obviously crashing off her endorphin high.

“If this were Florida, there would be fireflies coming out about now,” Dustin says. He's sitting right up against Eduardo, shoulder pressed up close. “I miss fireflies.”

“Really?” Eileen murmurs between yawns. Her arms stretch out above her head and there's visible muscle moving under the skin. “That's so cool. I don't think we have them out here.” She smiles at them and Eduardo finds himself smiling right back at her. He turns and raises an eyebrow at Dustin who shrugs and then nods.

Eduardo turns back to Eileen. She's leaning back on her elbows, looking at the sky. Admiring the night. “Hey,” he says. “If you want to come over here to this side of the fire...” he lets the words hang.

She laughs, obviously delighted, but shakes her head. “You're pretty enough that that line actually gets you play, aren't you? But no, gorgeous, I'm beat. I couldn't do anything but lie here.” Eduardo shrugs and smiles back easily, because this is nice too, just being here like this. She gives him a considering look and then one for Dustin. “I wouldn't mind watching, if you guys didn't mind me being here. That might keep me awake.”

Dustin's answering smile is swallowed when Eduardo turns and kisses him on the mouth.

Eduardo remembers being happy, absolutely, perfectly and clearly, back when he was in college, but things tend to get golden and distorted in hindsight. There's too much history for perfect happiness now.

This, though, this is pretty good.


End file.
